Taylorism Essay, Research Paper
Mail forum on
“Scientific Management” and Frederick W. Taylor. At one point Vincenzo
Sandrone submitted a post on the subject that the forum moderator deemed
appropriate to the discussion, but to long to be posted to the list.
What he did was post a notice to the list that the paper was available
from Mr. Sandrone via private E-Mail. What follows is that paper posted
on this site with permission of the author.
The paper will form part of an undergraduate thesis entitled
“Total Quality Engineering – A Holistic Approach to Engineering
Management” to be submitted in 1996 in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for a BE in Manufacturing Engineering at the University of
Technology, Sydney, NSW, Australia.
Mr. Sandrone’s source for quotes is:
Taylor Frederick W., 1964, Scientific Management – Comprising Shop
Management, The principles of Scientific Management and Testimony before
the Special House Committee, Harper and Row
All the quotes are from ‘Scientific Management’ this needs to be
highlighted as the edition restarted page numbers for each separate
section. That is, page numbers are not unique.
Please address any comments or critique to Mr. Sandrone.
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With all the discussion of Taylorism on the list and arguments that
both sides did not have the facts, I have decided I may be able to
provide some information.
I have included a copy of the section on Taylorism from my in process
Undergraduate Thesis. I hope that it may help put some facts into the
discussion. Looking over the section I have realized that it contained
the highest density of direct quotes in my thesis. I feel this was my
subconscious way of fighting the, what I considered, misinformation
that I had received about Taylorism.
Unfortunately I could not find a “definition” of science as applied in
Scientific method. However, I would like to make two points:
1) Taylor did not call his original paper “Scientific management” and
by the time he published it the name had stuck and his publisher changed
the name. (I cannot recall the name of his original paper.)
2) He sort of defines “Scientific Management” by saying what it is
not -
It is not “Rule of Thumb” when you consider that piece work based on
arbitrary quotas ( and heavily biased to the employer) was normal
practice. The use of work study/measurement to determine a fair quota
was a step forward for both management and the workers.
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Taylorism
Under Taylor’s management system, factories are managed through
scientific methods rather than by use of the empirical “rule of thumb”
so widely prevalent in the days of the late nineteenth century when
F. W. Taylor devised his system and published “Scientific Management”
in 1911.
The main elements of the Scientific Management are [1] :
“Time studies
Functional or specialized supervision
Standardization of tools and implements
Standardization of work methods
Separate Planning function
Management by exception principle
The use of “slide-rules and similar time-saving devices”
Instruction cards for workmen
Task allocation and large bonus for successful performance
The use of the ‘differential rate’
Mnemonic systems for classifying products and implements
A routing system
A modern costing system etc. etc. ”
Taylor called these elements “merely the elements or details of the
mechanisms of management” He saw them as extensions of the four
principles of management.[2]
1. The development of a true science
2. The scientific selection of the workman
3. The scientific education and development of the workman
4. Intimate and friendly cooperation between the management
and the men.
Taylor warned [3] of the risks managers make in attempting to make change
in what would presently be called, the culture, of the organization. He
stated the importance of management commitment and the need for gradual
implementation and education. He described “the really great problem”
involved in the change “consists of the complete revolution in the mental
attitude and the habits of all those engaged in the management, as well of
the workmen.” [4]
Taylor taught that there was one and only one method of work that maximized
efficiency. “And this one best method and best implementation can only be
discovered or developed through scientific study and analysis… This
involves the gradual substitution of science for ‘rule of thumb’ throughout
the mechanical arts.” [5]
“Scientific management requires first, a careful investigation
of each of the many modifications of the same implement,
developed under rule of thumb; and second, after time and
motion study has been made of the speed attainable with each
of these implements, that the good points of several of them
shall be unified in a single standard implementation, which
will enable the workman to work faster and with greater easy
than he could before. This one implement, then is the adopted
as standard in place of the many different kinds before in use
and it remains standard for all workmen to use until superseded
by an implement which has been shown, through motion and time
study, to be still better.” [6]
An important barrier to use of scientific management was the limited
education of the lower level of supervision and of the work force. A
large part of the factory population was composed of recent immigrants
who lacked literacy in English. In Taylor’s view, supervisors and workers
with such low levels of education were not qualified to plan how work should
be done. Taylor’s solution was to separate planning from execution.
“In almost all the mechanic arts the science which underlies
each act of each workman is so great and amounts to so much that
the workman who is best suited to actually doing the work is
incapable of fully understanding this science..” [7]
To apply his solution, Taylor created planning departments, staffed them
with engineers, and gave them the responsibility to:
Develop scientific methods for doing work.
Establish goals for productivity.
Establish systems of rewards for meeting the goals.
Train the personnel in how to use the methods and
thereby meet the goals.
Perhaps the key idea of Scientific management and the one which has
drawn the most criticism was the concept of task allocation. Task
allocation [8] is the concept that breaking task into smaller and
smaller tasks allows the determination of the optimum solution to
the task. “The man in the planning room, whose specialty is planning
ahead, invariably finds that the work can be done more economically
by subdivision of the labour; each act of each mechanic, for example,
should be preceded by various preparatory acts done by other men.” [9]
The main argument against Taylor is this reductionist approach to work
dehumanizes the worker. The allocation of work “specifying not only what is
to be done but how it is to done and the exact time allowed for doing it”
[10] is seen as leaving no scope for the individual worker to excel or
think. This argument is mainly due to later writing rather than Taylor’s
work as Taylor stated “The task is always so regulated that the man who is
well suited to his job will thrive while working at this rate during a long
term of years and grow happier and more prosperous, instead of being
overworked.” [11]
Taylor’s concept of motivation left something to be desired when
compared to later ideas. He methods of motivation started and finished
at monetary incentives. While critical of the then prevailing distinction
of “us “and “them” between the workforce and employers he tried to find
a common ground between the working and managing classes. “Scientific
Management has for its foundation the firm conviction that the true
interests of the two are one and the same; that prosperity for the employer
cannot exist a long term of years unless it is accompanied by prosperity for
the employee [sic], and vice versa ..” [12]
However, this emphasis on monetary rewards was only part of the story.
Rivalry between the Bethlehem and Pittsburgh Steel plants led to the
offer from Pittsburgh of 4.9 cents per ton against Bethlehem’s rate of
3.2 cents per day to the ore loaders. The ore loaders were spoken to
individually and their value to the company reinforced and offers to re-hire
them at any time were made. The majority of the ore loaders took up the
Pittsburgh offers. Most had returned after less than six weeks. [13]
The rates at Pittsburgh were determined by gang rates. Peer pressure from
the Pittsburgh employees to not work hard meant that the Bethlehem workers
actually received less pay than at Bethlehem. Two of the Bethlehem workers
requested to be placed in a separate gang, this was rejected by management
for the extra work required by management to keep separate record for each
worker. Taylor places the blame squarely on management and their inability
“to do their share of the work in cooperating with the workmen.” [14]
Taylor’s attitudes towards workers were laden with negative bias
“in the majority of cases this man deliberately plans to do as little
as he safely can.” [15] The methods that Taylor adopted were directed
solely towards the uneducated. “When he tells you to pick up a pig and
walk, you pick it up and walk, and when he tells you to sit down and rest,
you sit down. You do that right through the day. And what’s more, no back
talk”. This type of behaviour towards workers appears barbaric in the
extreme to the modern reader, however, Taylor used the example of Schmidt
at the Bethlehem Steel Company to test his theories. Taylor admits “This
seems rather rough talk. And indeed it would be if applied to an educated
mechanic, or even an intelligent labourer.” [17] The fact that Taylor took
the effort to firstly know the workers name and to cite it is some
indication that he empathized with the workforce. This study improved the
workrate of Schmidt from 12.5 tons to 47.5 tons per day showing the worth
of Scientific Management.
The greatest abuse of Scientific Management has come from applying the
techniques without the philosophy behind them. It is obvious from Taylor’s
own observations that the above discussion would be misplaced in other
workers. Taylor acknowledged the potential for abuse in his methods. “The
knowledge obtained from accurate time study, for example, is a powerful
implement, and can be used, in one case to promote harmony between workmen
and the management, by gradually educating, training, and leading the
workmen into new and better methods of doing the work, or in the other
case, it may be used more or less as a club to drive the workmen into
doing a larger day’s work for approximately the same pay that they received
in the past.” [17]
Scientific Study and standardization were important parts of the Scientific
Management. One example, was the study undertaken to determine the optimum
shovel load for workers. The figure of 21 pounds [18] was arrived at by
the study. To ensure that this shovel load was adhered to, a series of
different shovels were purchased for different types of material. Each
shovel was designed to ensure that only 21 pounds could be lifted. This
stopped the situation where “each shoveller owned his own shovel, that he
would frequently go from shoveling ore, with a load of about 30 pounds per
shovel, to handling rice coal, with a load on the same shovel of less than
4 pounds. In the one case, he was so overloaded that it was impossible for
him to do a full day’s work, and in the other case he was so ridiculously
under-loaded that it was manifestly impossible to even approximate a day’s
work.” [19]
Taylor spent a considerable amount of his books in describing “soldiering”
the act of ‘loafing’ both at an individual level and “systematic soldiering”.
He described the main reasons that workers were not performing their work
at the optimum. Though worded in a patronizing way the essence of the
descriptions are still valid. [20]
The belief that increased output would lead to less workers.
Inefficiencies within the management control system such as
poorly designed incentive schemes and hourly pay rates not
linked to productivity
Poor design of the performance of the work by rule-of-thumb
The fear of redundancies within the workforce was a valid argument during
the previous style of management. Taylor not only countered this argument
by using economic arguments of increased demand due to decreased pricing
but put forward the idea of sharing the gains with the workforce.
Taylor saw the weaknesses of piece work in the workers reactions to gradual
decreases in the piece rate as the worker produced more pieces by working
harder and/or smarter. The worker then is determined to have no more
reduction in rate by “soldiering”. This deception leads to an antagonistic
view of management and a general deterioration of the worker/management
relationship.
Taylor also was a strong advocate of worker development. It follows that
the most important object of both the workman and the establishment should
be the training and development of each individual in the establishment,
so that he can do ( at his fastest pace and with the maximum of efficiency)
the highest class of work for which his natural abilities for him.” [21]
Taylor’s ideas on management and workers speaks of justice for both parties.
“It (the public) will no longer tolerate the type of employer who has his
eyes only on dividends alone, who refuses to do his share of the work and
who merely cracks the whip over the heads of his workmen and attempts to
drive them harder work for low pay. No more will it tolerate tyranny on the
part of labour which demands one increase after another in pay and shorter
hours while at the same time it becomes less instead of more efficient.”[22]
Taylor’s system was widely adopted in the United States and the world.
Although the Taylor system originated in the factory production departments,
the concept of separating planning from execution was universal in nature
and, hence, had potential application to other areas:
production support services
offices operations
service industries.
Management’s new responsibilities were extended to include: [23]
Replacing the old rule-of-thumb with scientific management
Scientifically select and train, teach and develop the workman
“Heartily cooperate with the men so as to insure[sic] all the
work being done in accordance with the principles of the science
which has been developed”
Take over the work for which they are “better fitted” than the
workmen.
Relationship between Taylorism and TQM
Taylor’s more general summary of the principles of Scientific Management
are better suited for inclusion into the TQM methodology, than the narrow
definitions.
“It is no single element , but rather the this whole combination, that
constitutes Scientific Management, which may be summarized as:
Science, not rule of thumb
Harmony, not discord
Cooperation, not individualism
Maximum output in place of restricted output
The development of each man to his greatest
efficiency and prosperity” [24]
Much has happened, since Taylor developed his method of Scientific
Management, to make obsolete the premises on which he based his concepts:
Lack of education is no longer reason enough to separate the
planning function
The balance of power between managers and the work force has
changed. Where in Taylor’s time it was heavily weighted against
the workers. Unionism (or the threat of it) has profoundly
changed that balance.
Changes in the climate of social thinking.
Revolts against the “dehumanizing” of work.
A basic tenet of Scientific management was that employees were not highly
educated and thus were unable to perform any but the simplest tasks. Modern
thought is that all employees have intimate knowledge of job conditions and
are therefore able to make useful contributions. Rather than dehumanizing
the work and breaking the work down into smaller and smaller units to